A Terrific Weekend

A terrific weekend.

This past weekend I spent in Neiba, Dominican Republic. I went with the purpose of going to a retreat for young people from all over the country.

I had no idea about the retreat but Antonio told me about it and encouraged me and Jean Carlos to go with him.

On Wednesday, Jean Carlos and I went to Puerto Plata and spent the night with Antonio then left on Thursday for Santiago to meet up with their cousin, Wendy. We spent the day in Santiago visiting their family, including their mom, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and lots of friends from Santiago.

On Thursday we woke up around 2:30 AM to head to Neiba.

We were the first ones to arrive about six hours later.

Their camp is way up in the mountains and it was very cold but very relaxing and ve

ry fun.

The theme for the weekend was “Luciernagas” which is like a lighting bug. All weekend we talked about shining our light for Christ and reflecting his light onto others.

I met many awesome people. It was so encouraging to see how many people there are in this country who are desperately trying to follow Christ and what he has planned for them.

One of the leaders for the weekend was n

amed Christian. I spent a lot of time with him talking and getting to know his work and a lot of the work going on here in the Dominican.

The last night we were there we had invited many people from the community to come and here the lesson. Many people responded to the gospel

and were baptized, including someone very special to me, but a separate entry for that.

It truly was an amazing weekend and I pray and w

ait the next time that I will be able to meet up with these great people.

Dear LORD,

thank you so much for this weekend. I am so thankful to have been able to spend it with some amazing people. I am so thankful for all the people that made it possible

and made it go so well. Help me to shine and be your light to the world as we were talking about this weekend.
My prayer is one that I read that Mother Teresa used to always say:

“Dear LORD,

Help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.

Flood our souls with your Spirit and Light.

Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.

Shine thru us and be so in us that every soul we come in contact with may feel your presence in our soul.

Let them look up and no longer see us but only Jesus.

Stay with us and then, O LORD, we shall begin to shine as you shine. So to shine as to be a light to others. The light, O LORD, will be all from you, non

e of it will be ours. It will be you shining on others thru us.

Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us.

Let us preach you without preaching. Not by words, but by our example. The catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do.

The evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you.”